The cart rumbled down the road as Dusk the mare Arlie had bought dutifully pulled the small cart along. The group of six kept together as they joined other travelers on the roads. Up ahead the forest had opened up to reveal the fields running along the banks of the rivers Yutal and Vulkira.

  None of them paid much attention to the farms, fences and farmhouses that dotted the rolling hills and ft stretches of nd along the river banks. Instead they were focusing on the town ahead of them. Built along the banks of the two rivers, dotted with harbors and surrounded by tall stone walls was the town of Arcs. The massive walls were composed of dark stone bricks carved with intricate precision and pced with great care. Not one bit or mortar was used in the construction of the towering walls that made Arcs into a fortress. The solid bck stones were easily ten meters thick and rose fifty meters over the nd. Evenly pced along the length of the walls were numerous watchtowers that stood a good twenty meters taller than the walls, giving the defenders a commanding view of the area.

  At the base of those walls, carts and travelers were gathering where the guard was present to inspect every traveler coming into the town. Arlie pulled out her identification card and prepared some coins for the strongbox in her cart. She left the more valuable gold marks in the box and picked out a few silver marks and some coppers for shopping. They were also going to need coins to pay for a temporary pass for Ixil, she didn’t have one.

  Everyone else having been to Arcs before were registered with a guild and had an identification card. Rose and Lily had registered with the hunter’s guild, Horon was registered with the bcksmith’s guild, Arlie naturally was registered with the Mages guild, hell her family practically ran the st guild. She knew Ria was a high-ranking member and her mother was the previous guildmaster. As for Thron? His desire to be a hero made him train to be a warrior, and while he’d yet to get a post he was technically registered with the guard’s guild. Each guild had their own little system for ranking people, which is why pces like the Adventurer’s Guild had proposed the unified ranking system. Unlike some of the other systems it made a fair bit of sense, adventurers were given a rank and a css. All adventurers started as recruits of Third Css, and the guard and warrior guilds had pretty much adopted the system.

  It wasn’t that complex a system, as you proved your skills you’d advance a css. Once you were solid enough they would promote you to the next rank. Recruits were newbies, and immediately above them were the Apprentices, then Journeyman, Veterans, Elites, and finally at the very top the Masters. On documentation these ranks were often condensed into a letter form, so for a recruit they might see F-3 on their license to indicate a third css recruit.

  She sputtered into ughter as she recalled Thron’s rank, the poor idiot was a Recruit... Fourth css. She giggled some more.

  Ixil blinked, “Is something funny?”

  “I just remembered Thron’s rank in the guild.”

  Lily and Rose giggling themselves filled her in. She joined them, “How do you even do that?”

  Thron slumped, and Horon commented, “Well it's your own fault.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  Arlie composed herself, “He’s pretty good with the sword but he’s his own worst enemy. Like recently we had to rescue him after he tried to clear a bandit camp on his own.”

  “Is he stupid?”

  “Maybe a bit, he gets swept in ideas of heroics and trying to help people that he doesn’t stop to think.”

  Horon nodded, “Don’t worry with me here to keep an eye on him, we might just keep him in check.”

  Arlie chuckled as the group joined the growing line in front of town. Idly she pulled out her mage guild card, something that would be quite valid if she chose to register at the adventurer’s guild as well. After checking to make sure everything was in order, she struck up a chat with the twins.

  However it wasn’t long before a commotion up ahead drew her attention, as a group of adventurers covered in wounds rushed past the line. Naturally shouting ensued, as the adventurers got into a shouting match. Some of the words caught her ears and she excused herself to head on up.

  Reaching the main gate, she found a party of five arguing with a familiar guard. She’d greeted the big man in polished blue-grey armor more than once. He stood there with a guards spear in hand, a shortsword at his hip, and a shield strapped to his arm. His helmet was hanging on a hook on his belt, giving Arlie a good look at his bearded and friendly featured face with kind brown eyes.

  One of the adventurers, a man with far too much muscle and dirty beard spoke, “I’m telling you, its a fucking stampede!”

  “I heard you, we will look into it but that doesn’t mean I can overlook you trying to start a panic.”

  Arlie drew closer, “Hey Raynor! What’s going on here?”

  “Miss Contrey? What brings you to town?”

  “The usual, visiting my aunt, brought along the twins. Horon came since he needs a new hammer, and Thron tagged along. Left them with the cart.”

  A nky guy with bck hair, dark eyes and a strange tan spoke up, “Um, little girl? Could you stay out of this, we are...”

  She gred at him, “Little girl!? Do I look like a kid to you!?”

  The other four in his party winced, “Um, Hikaru?”

  Without waiting for Dirty Muscle to finish he said, “Sure do!”

  Dirty Muscle groaned, “Hikaru!”

  She lifted her chest, “What child has boobs?”

  “Ah you clearly just stuffed your robes.”

  “Hikaru! Are you nuts!?”

  Finally he gnced at Dirty Muscle, “What?”

  “Um, Hikaru I know you aren’t from around here but...”

  “Get to the point?”

  “She’s not a kid, she’s a mage, and obviously of Contrey blood.”

  Raynor who’d been rubbing his temple commented, “Best to apologize now, Arlie’s known for her short temper.”

  “Huh? What does her family have to do with anything!?”

  Arlie frowned, and looked at Raynor, “So where’d the clueless foreigner come from?”

  Raynor shrugged, “No Idea.”

  “Hey! Little dy! If you have something...”

  Arlie zapped him, “I have a name, stop calling me variations of little! It’s not my fault my family is petite!”

  Hikaru groaned, and Dirty Muscle spoke up again, “Right, as amusing as this is, there is still the stampede.”

  Arlie frowned, “Stampede?”

  Hikaru spoke up, “We were out hunting Vorks when we started hearing something odd.” he pointed to the east. “Out by Telma Ridge, we saw the strangest sight and they are heading right this way.”

  Dirty Muscle filled in the bnks, “A hundred spinebacks and dozens more lizardi were rushing this way. Not only that, but we saw strange bck humanoid creatures running among them. I’ve never seen anything like them. They were all teeth, cws and spikes, very nasty looking and their eyes? They were downright creepy.”

  “A horde? That doesn’t make sense we don’t get those in Varixyies.”

  Raynor nodded, “It does sound far-fetched more likely...”

  “And we told you what we saw!” One of the silent ones shouted as he presented an odd corpse, “We even killed some of the damn things!”

  Arlie sighed, even as Raynor countered, “A few strange bodies aren’t proof of a horde. We need a proper investigation.”

  “And I’m telling you, you don’t have time!”

  Suddenly a rumble filled the air, and Arlie looked to the treeline. Age-old ironwood trees fell over as rge lumbering spinebacks and limber lizardi rushed into the area. Screams filled the air as bck skinned humanoid monsters burst onto the scene as well. Arm bells rang overhead, as someone opened the gate.

  People rushed in, as the adventurers drew their weapons. “See! They are fucking here.”

  Arlie blinked this wasn’t right, not at all. Her mind fshed to those prophecies, one of them said; Monsters driven by the fires of war will fall upon the ranks of man. She’d heard of no war, but this? This was an ill omen, there was no doubt about that.

  Hikaru suddenly spoke up, “Little Lady, get into the town!”

  She gred at him, “I’ve got a name! How many times do I have to tell you to stop treating me like a child.”

  Just then Rose called out, “Hey Arlie! Are we going in, or what?”

  She looked over to see her friends had drawn close. Bringing the cart with them, Dusk seemed a little frightened, but Horon was there comforting the mare. “I was going to stay here and help. The guards will need to keep the gate open so that farmers can get in the walls safely.”

  Raynor commented, “In that case stay behind me,” he gnced at the twins, “You two! Get on the wall, I want you to join the archers.”

  Rose nodded and Lily grabbed some more arrows out of the cart, “Sure thing!”

  A couple more guards came over and led them towards the battlements. Horon said, “I’ll take Ixil and the cart inside.”

  “Thanks, Horon!” she gnced at Thron, “I’m counting on you to keep those beasts away from me while I cast my spells.”

  He grinned, “You can count on me!”

  Thron took up formation in front of her, and Raynor joined him, along with a number of spearmen from the guard. The wounded adventurers lined up as well. “Come on, let us help, we’ve still got some fight left in us.”

  She sighed, “Raynor? Could you go ask Horon for my potions?”

  He rushed off quickly and came back with a box of potions in a moment. She took five and handed them to the adventurers including the foolish Hikaru who was still looking at her like a kid, her words seemingly didn’t mean much.

  It didn’t matter at the moment, as she watched the monsters swarm the fields. They were too far out for archers to hit them, even as the farmers were already running. Some patrols out by the trees engaged them. She watched one guardsmen go down, a lizardi attacked him from the front catching his spear, while a second fnked him, hitting the man in the side, cws tearing his armor open.

  Elsewhere one of the bizarre bck humanoid things lept onto the back of a pregnant farmer, her husband turned when she cried out. Brandishing the hoe he was holding he swung at the creature only for his strike to sail wide, hitting only the ground. Two more jumped him in that moment, despite their small stature they were strong and they tore his arms off right there. Screams erupted from him and others as blood spurted from the fresh wounds.

  Meanwhile the creature on his wife, tore her clothing to shreds after wrestling her to the ground, four more surged close and pinned her limbs to the ground. A sadistic grin showed on the evil creature’s face as its orange eyes glowed. It ran a cw along the woman’s belly and then suddenly it cut her, tearing her belly open as she screamed. Finding her baby, it pulled it out then showed it off like it was some prize. Several others came forward and then fought each other. When some winner seemed decided, they took the baby and ran off, vanishing into the woods. The rest fell on the woman and ripped her to shreds, slowly. Each cut elicited another piercing cry from her.

  Arlie saw only red as she noted simir scenes taking pce elsewhere, but she held herself back. Staying put with a spell ready on her lips, the moment one of those things came into range, she unleashed a bolt of lightning. The charge bolt smmed into the thing leaving a smoking corpse where it stood, then she unched another one and another, as the first arrows flew.

  Some of the things hit the line, even as farmers were reaching the safety of the walls, others were still running towards them. Running for their lives, but the damn things were as fast as they were vicious. Arlie lost track of the flow and merely let the guards direct her as she rained spells upon the creatures. From above fshes of light and thunder split the sky as magical weapons rained death on the rge beasts in the midst of the bck terrors. Then as suddenly as the battle started it was over, leaving behind a field of mangled corpses both human and monster, yet the humans would be hard to identify given how badly they were mauled by the things.